Ananta Group receives USD13.8m loan from French lender Proparco

The French Development Finance Institution Proparco is providing Ananta Group in Bangladesh funds for capacity development.

Proparco has given Ananta Huaxiang Limited, a subsidiary of Ananta Group, USD 13.8 million in a loan to for expansion of production facilities.

The loan will help Ananta to emerge as a large volume sweater manufacturer and strengthen its competitiveness in the international market.

"It gives us immense pleasure to support Ananta Huaxiang Limited, a responsible actor in Bangladesh’s garment industry, committed to gender diversity," said Diane Jegam, regional director (South Asia), Proparco.

"Our support to the manufacturing company will strengthen the largest exporting sector of Bangladesh. Ananta is committed to the well-being of its employees, women empowerment and sustainable use of resources," she said.

Ananta Group managing director Sharif Zahir said that the partnership with Proparco would greatly support the vision of sustainable factories scoring high on environmental and social compliance standards.

"The new capacity expansion financed by Proparco has been completed in record time, and the factory is already in operation employing a gender-balanced workforce and contributing to the export earnings of the country,’ he added.

‘Further, we are delighted to work with Proparco and look forward to growing this partnership in the years to come.’

Bangladesh is the second largest readymade garment exporter in the world after China.

Established in 2010 as a partnership between Ananta Group and Shanghai Huaxiang of China, Ananta Huaxiang Ltd is a joint venture company capable of producing a wide variety of fully fashioned knitted products, and ranks among the top 10 sweater producers in Bangladesh exporting mostly to Europe for various international brands.